By Clara Migoya/El Inde Antonio Tapia, 79, stands on the porch of his southside Tucson home, scanning a sepia drawing through thick, smoky glasses. His eyes move from a tall poplar tree in the picture, to the small adobe building, the tin-shed house, a horse pasturing, the dirt street at the border of the wire…
By Clara Migoya /El Inde In a lot on Harshaw Avenue, off-road trucks line up in neat rows. The small town of Patagonia is seeing new activity in the nearby mountains now that South32, an Australian mining company, is running round-the-clock mineral drilling operations at the Hermosa-Taylor mine. “The Taylor deposit, just by scale, is…
By Ashley Fredde/El Inde While there are many plants nestled in Borderlands Restoration Network’s greenhouses, the blue agave is one of Francesca Claverie’s favorites. Claverie, the Native Plant Program Manager, holds a cup of coffee despite the warm temperatures inside the greenhouse, nicknamed Greenhouse Baby Herbert. She leans over the agaves hanging in rows in the…
By Ashley Fredde/El Inde If one were to conjure up an image of a southwestern rancher, Richard Collins might be close. A rancher since the 1980s, Collins looks every bit the part, with his pants pulled over boots that have dried mud around the sole. His hands and face are weathered from working in the…
By Seth Markowski/El Inde An hour southeast of Tucson, the communities of Elgin and Sonoita sit at more than 4,000 feet above sea level. Rolling hills covered in golden grasses slowly transition into towering mountains. Roaming cattle dot the hills. This area of high desert — with unreliable rainfall, tough soil, and scorching summer temperatures…
